17 Facts About Solitary confinement

Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which the inmate lives in a single cell with little or no meaningful contact with other people.

However, solitary confinement is used to protect inmates whose safety is threatened by other inmates by separating them from the general population.

Use of solitary confinement increased greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to avoid spread of the virus in prisons.

Solitary confinement is commonly used as a form of punishment for violation of prison rules or other disciplinary infractions by an inmate.

Solitary confinement is the norm in supermax prisons, where prisoners who are deemed dangerous or of high risk are held.

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However, solitary confinement is still widely used across Europe for a variety of reasons.

Frances Crook is one of many to believe that incarceration and solitary confinement are the harshest forms of possible punishments and "should only be taken as a last resort".

Solitary confinement first arose in the United States in the 1700s among religious groups like the Quakers, who thought isolation with a Bible would lead to repentance and rehabilitation.

Physicians have concluded that for those inmates who enter the prison already diagnosed with a mental illness, the punishment of solitary confinement is extremely dangerous in that the inmates are more susceptible to exacerbating the symptoms.

Solitary confinement has been reported to cause hypertension, headaches and migraines, profuse sweating, dizziness, and heart palpitations.

The resocialization of newly released inmates who spent an unreasonable amount of time in solitary confinement and thus suffer from serious mental illnesses is a huge dilemma for society to face.

Solitary confinement is considered to be a form of psychological torture with measurable long-term physiological effects when the period of confinement is longer than a few weeks or is continued indefinitely.

Health care professionals and organizations recognize the fact that solitary confinement is not ethical, yet the segregating treatment fails to come to a halt.

Legality of solitary confinement has been frequently challenged over the past sixty years as conceptions surrounding the practice have changed.

Much of the legal discussion concerning solitary confinement has centered on whether or not it constitutes torture or cruel and unusual punishment.

Solitary confinement has served as a site of inspiration for protest-organizing against its use in and outside of prisons and conversely, as a response tactic for prisons to react to the protest-organizing of its prisoners.

Scrutiny of super-maximum security prisons and the institutionalization of solitary confinement is accompanied by suggestions for alternative methods.